Kafka Message Stream Viewer
The Kafka Message Stream Viewer is a feature of AxonOps that allows authorized users to inspect messages from Kafka topics directly in the AxonOps dashboard. It provides a controlled, auditable path to Kafka message data without requiring users to have direct broker access or local Kafka tooling on their workstation.
What it does
Section titled “What it does”The viewer streams messages from a selected Kafka topic and displays them in a table in the browser. Operators and developers can use it to:
- Verify that producers are writing expected message formats and content.
- Diagnose consumer lag by inspecting the messages at the partition offset.
- Validate schema encoding and topic structure.
- Confirm event delivery during incident investigation or deployment validation.
How access works
Section titled “How access works”Access to the stream viewer is controlled through AxonOps, not through direct Kafka credentials. A user must have a stream access grant in AxonOps before they can view messages from a topic.
When a user starts a stream session, AxonOps issues a short-lived JWT containing the list of Kafka topics the user is authorized to access. That token is pushed to the axon-agent running inside the Kafka environment. The agent validates the token and reads from Kafka only for topics included in the allow-list.
Kafka message payloads are streamed directly from the axon-agent to the browser over HTTPS. They are not routed through or stored by the AxonOps control plane.
Key capabilities
Section titled “Key capabilities”| Capability | Detail |
|---|---|
| Topic selection | Stream from a specific topic or any topic in the cluster, subject to access grants. |
| Partition control | Start from earliest, latest, a specific offset, or a specific timestamp. |
| Schema support | Optional schema-aware decoding for encoded message values. |
| Message filtering | Apply a regular expression filter to limit displayed messages. |
| Row limit | Cap the number of messages returned to the stream table. |
| Audit logging | AxonOps records stream access grants, token creation, and RBAC changes for audit review. |
When to use it
Section titled “When to use it”The stream viewer is suited to operational and diagnostic use cases where a user needs to observe live or recent Kafka topic data. It is not a bulk export tool and is not intended as a replacement for consumer applications.
Note
Each stream session is authorized by a time-limited token. When the token expires, the stream must be re-authorized through AxonOps.